CSU’s assignment: A green Chevy Malibu

Now, this isn’t like the “Oprah” show, where the star gives away a car to every audience member — with no strings attached.

General Motors is giving a Chevrolet Malibu to Colorado State University — and the school MUST do something with it in the “EcoCar 12: Plugging Into the Future” college competition.

GM and the U.S. Department of Energy chose CSU as one of 16 teams in North America that will participate in the three-year project. The assignment: To re-engineer the Malibu and convert it into a hybrid/electric or fuel-cell vehicle, “to reduce its environmental impact without compromising performance, safety and consumer acceptability,” the rules say.

The work will take place at both the CSU Motorsports Engineering Research Center and the school’s Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory.

“Part of the mission is to increase engineering students’ education about sustainable transportation and such, but also to get out there and communicate with the public about this technology and where transportation is going in the future,” said Thomas Bradley, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and lead faculty adviser for the CSU team.

Bradley estimates that about 40 students will be involved in the project in each of three years — and not just those in engineering.

“There’s also a larger role for communications majors and business majors,” he said. “We’ll have to do outreach. We have to arrange for the car to go out to local schools, and participate in local business community stuff. The global idea is to contribute as much as we can to the local economy and to education.”

In the first year of the program, students will develop the vehicle design. The last two years will be spent converting, testing and integrating their designs. Then, the prototype cars will compete in a week-long competition of engineering tests.

“This should be really great for the students,” Bradley said. “It’s a focal point, and CSU is really into renewable energy problems and sustainability. This is a way we can bring stuff we’ve been doing to the national stage.

“It should be really great for Colorado, too. We will seek out industrial sponsors. There are lots of opportunities for local companies to help with students, and to hire the students when they get out of this extraordinary process.”

CSU has decades of experience in automotive and energy research, according to Bradley.

This year, CSU students built a fuel-cell, hybrid electric motorcycle under contract from the U.S. Air Force. It will be demonstrated at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.